The Recombinant Protein Core was organized to meet the needs of the Research Projects for production, purification and characterization of proteins and antibodies that are unavailable elsewhere. In addition, the Core will generate new proteins and antibodies never before produced. The four basic science and translational Research Projects each will require growth factors, binding proteins, receptors, signaling cascade proteins, kinases, transcription factors, mutant forms thereof, and antibodies thereto. This core will be administered as a closed core due to its specialized nature. Priorities will be set by the International Advisory Committee in coordination with the Core Director. The centralization of production, purification and characterization of recombinant proteins and antibodies will prove highly cost effective. The duplication of effort, expertise and equipment necessary for each unit to produce, purify and characterize their own recombinant proteins and antibodies will be eliminated and the expertise and technology concentrated in the Core. The extensive experience of the Core Director will be brought to bear on the needs of each Research Project. In cases where the same proteins or antibodies need to be used by more than one Research Project, reliance on the uniformity and quality of the reagents will be particularly important. Providing these reagents to Research Projects 11-14 will greatly facilitate the advancement of the aims and in some cases will make key contributions without which some areas of investigation would not be possible.